


Look to Your Left

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, F/F, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's what could have been. Or perhaps it's what truly <em>did</em> happen, and everything else is just another bad dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look to Your Left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelin/gifts).



It's Julie's gasp that wakes me, a soft scrape of breath that knocks me out of a sleep that's never entirely sound any more. I don't think either of us remembers how to sleep well, not unless we're beyond dead tired.

Maybe here, maybe now, we can learn how to sleep again. Maybe even learn how to dream, and have it not be a horror.

I roll over in bed to face her even though it's too dark to see anything. When I speak, I feel the warmth of my own breath caught against her cheek. It's like turning on a light in the cold darkness of the room.

"I'm here, Julie."

Her hand finds mine under the blankets without hesitation or fumbling. She squeezes my hand and I squeeze back in return. I wait for her to talk. She'll do so without my asking unless the talking will only make it worse. So I don't ask.

Neither of us asks anymore. We know the other is there if we need to talk, and sometimes that knowing is enough to make the bad dreams go away. We are a sensational team, even in this.

"You're here, and _I'm_ here," Julie says, and when I hear the shaky triumph in her voice I can see her smile, darkness be damned. "We're _here_ , Maddie, and it's _Christmas_."

My own smile feels fit to split my own face in two. "We are, and it _is_." It doesn't matter that Christmas in and of itself means nothing to me. What matters is that it means everything to Julie, to Jamie, to their mother, to the children sheltered here. Their joy and relief is infectious in the best possible way. It's a reminder that not everything is dark. I give Julie's hand another squeeze. There's a pause, and then she squeezes back, and this time there's something desperate about it, as if she's afraid something is trying to pull her away from me and into the darkness. 

So, I anchor her, and she anchors me in return. That's how it is with us - how it will always be.

"I was starting to believe I was finally _done_ with the nightmares," Julie grumps after a bit, her hand finally relaxing in mine. Maybe five nights withough being woken by the monsters in her own head had left her optimistic, but if the same were to happen to me, I would start bracing myself for when - not if - I was blindsided by all the horrors that have been biding their time and building their strength. "I blame my leg."

"Poor Julie." I nuzzle her cheek. "Is it aching still?"

A grumble tells me that yes, it is. How very like Julie to survive - and successfully complete - a mission in Brittany where nearly everything went wrong, only to fall off of a kerb minutes after she's safe back at base and shatter her ankle.

The cast and crutches make her miserable (and at times, a misery to deal with - that's the plain truth of it), but least it means we both have leave at the same time, and at Christmas in the bargain. It also means, after countless leaves where we just missed each other, that we're both finally, _finally_ at Craig Castle at the same time. 

For the first time in years, it feels like _home_

It's strange, after a steady diet of quick catchings-up in the base canteen and tense conversation when I'm flying her into enemy territory and trying not to think how it might be the last time we see each other, to have such an abundance.

I dread what it will be like when this respite is over and we can no longer put the war aside for this too-little while.

The quiet goes on long enough that I think she's fallen asleep, but then her hiss cuts through the cold air. "Stupid... So, so _stupid!_ " I think I hear the edge of a sob.

"You were so exhausted, you could hardly walk in a straight line, and there was ice besides! You can't blame yourself!" Yes, Julie has a horrible sense of direction, but what had happened two weeks ago was pure accident. She stepped wrong on a patch of ice - something that could happen to anyone, dead tired or not - and in trying to catch herself, stumbled from the pavement onto the road. Time stops now as it did then, and my shoulder burns anew as if I had once again grabbed the collar of her coat to snatch her back. I again hear the sound of bone cracking and feel the sting of my hair whipping in my face as the troop convoy roared past scant inches away. 

A second slower on my part, and it would have been roaring right over Julie.

I've had more than a few nightmares about that particular moment myself in the days since. I don't imagine they'll leave me alone for a good while. It still makes me physically ill to think of how close, how bloody, bloody close it was. Sometimes, it seems too good to be true that she actually survived.

Every morning since we've been here and I've been sharing Julie's room, I wake in the last moments before dawn and lie still as can be, listening to her breath and watching for the rising sun to catch the gold of her hair and the curve of her body, reminding myself that we're here, we're _here_ , we're _alive_. Julie is alive. _This_ is the reality, and that might-have-been that was so close to being real is now nothing but a nightmare.

Now, I hear the whisper of hair on linen as Julie shakes her head. "Not that. Not _then_. That's not what was stupid. When I was stupid."

She's silent, then, and it takes me a while to realize that she's waiting for me to speak. When I do, I feel some of the tension that's come into her hand start to leave again.

"So, when were you stupid, then?"

"Ormaie."

I hear the thickness of her trying not to cry. We've held each other through the other's tears too often to be ashamed of tears, and I understand why she would cry. I want to cry myself, remembering the pain of a grief that was not my own.

But I also know what it's like to fear that once you start crying, you'll not be able to stop.

"I'm here, Julie. I'm here," I reassure us both.

"Well, _yes_ , obviously!" The peevishness after the almost tears is enough to startle a laugh from me, and the next thing, we're both shaking with laughter. Every time one of us finally stops, the other one lets loose with another giggle that just sets us off again.

Then Julie rolls towards me, ponderously and with much grousing (and a few curses) because of the cast. Her free hand comes up to rest on my cheek and she presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. We lie there for a long while, face to face, breathing one another's breath.

"We're both here," she says at last, and this proclamation is meant to be a reminder to us both. Then, her voice hitches. "But... we so nearly _weren't_ , Maddie."

I know. It is something I will always know, that for three long days in Ormaie, Julie had every reason to believe I was dead, stuck in an unflyable plane with a payload of explosives and a broken rudder, forever climbing, and...

And I take a deep breath, guiding my thoughts back to the ground and back to Ormaie, where for those three days, I was out of my own mind with fear. Some of this was fear for myself, stranded in the French countryside without Julie's gifts of language and easy lies. Most of it was fear for Julie, as I quickly found that our papers had been switched and the only identification she had marked her as a British citizen - and one with a Jewish surname in the bargain. Had she even noticed the switch? What if someone asked for her papers, and she just handed them over without knowing that she was handing herself over?

Fortunately, with papers declaring me as Kathe Harbicht, the Thibauts could pass me off as their simpleton of a cousin if need be. So, I did what I could to keep busy and keep attention off of me while I tried to keep my mind off of Julie disappearing into the night, landing who-knows-where.

She, falling into darkness. Me, rising unstoppably into the night. I had made it to the ground at last, but Julie...

I didn't even think of Julie's grief for me until nearly two days later when Mitraillette brought her to where I was sleeping in the Thibaut's hayloft. I remember being woken from a restless sleep to the sight Mitraillette's triumphant and very knowing smirk. Next thing I new, Julie was pushing Mitraillette aside and shouting (quietly, of course) at me for nearly twenty minutes straight before pulling me into a hug I thought would break every one of my ribs.

Everything she had to keep wrapped up tightly inside for those three days as she did the work she had been sent to do poured out in a storm of angry tears even as I grieved for the grief I had caused.

And then, we smiled at each other, grinning like a couple of fools - Julie with her false self falling aside and me with strands of hay all through my curls. Then we put _us_ aside for the rest of the mission and went on to finish the work that needed to be done. 

And now, Julie and I are here. We are safe. Jock, Ross and a host of new-to-me children are safe. Jamie is safe, even if not perfectly sound, across the hall in his own room. I spare a thought for poor, brave Mitraillette and for dear, infuriating Anna. I hope they are both safe and as happy as is possible to be in these times. Perhaps, after the war...

But that's after. Now is _now_.

"I did _walk_ away from the plane, which means it met the minimum requirements for a successful landing," I joke, because if I don't, we'll both start wallowing, and I want to enjoy this. This here. This now. Julie. Me. _Us_.

There's a long silence. After a moment, I let go of Julie's hand, but it's only to pull her closer. I rest my forehead against her shoulder, feel the fine lace of her nightgown, and breathe in the familiar rose scent of her soap.

"Julie."

I wait.

"What was stupid? What happened?" I know I'm breaking our rule about asking, but this feels different.

I feel and hear the shudder of a breath. "Nothing. Nothing happened." There's another pause, but not nearly as long as the ones before. When she speaks again, it's in a whisper. "But something almost did."

Now, she reaches out and cups the back of my head in her palm, gently twining her fingers into my hair. It pulls a bit, but I won't complain.

"I was on my way to the archives to get the floorplans. You can imagine what a stew my mind was in."

I could. Me, presumably dead. The explosives needed to destroy the Hotel d'Ormaie, uselessly spent or in German hands. 

"I was just about to cross the street, and I checked for traffic out of habit. You know, just how we're taught as children. Always - "

"Look to your right," I finish for her, my throat tight. I see where this is going.

"I was desperate to get into the archives and back out again, I didn't even stop. I took a quick look to the right and kept on going."

I close my eyes even though it makes little change to the darkness. It also doesn't stop me from seeing what almost happened a year ago and what almost happened two weeks ago.

"But just as I was about to step into the street I thought I heard you calling out to me." Julie strokes my cheek with the back of her hand, and I feel the slickness of my own tears. "'Look to your _left_ , you brainless ninny!'" she declares, exaggerating her own soft brogue so she sounds like a music-hall parody of a Scot.

"That's nothing like how I talk!"

Julie laughs, and I know the mischief that's in her eyes even though it's hidden from me just now. "Maybe it was just the you in my head. You'd been keeping me company the few days before then. I was starting to wonder if I was haunted, or..."

She doesn't finish and I'm not certain what she meant to say next, or if she meant to say anything at all.

"Well, I'm flattered that you decided to give what wee little bit common sense you have _my_ voice!" I'm tempted to keep on teasing, but I know if I don't ask, I'll go on wondering forever. "And... _was_ there something to your left?"

My head shifts as Julie nods, jostling our shared pillow. "A truck."

Of course it was a truck. But this time, I wasn't there to pull her to safety except as a voice in her own head. She might have been killed before I had a chance to know that she'd survived her jump into the night.

"No. The truck wasn't going fast enough to do me a real injury." It doesn't surprise me that she knows what's going through my head. "It would have knocked me down, though, and there was that bloody Gestapo thug who was always on duty on that corner. I've no doubt the little monster would have noticed if someone stepped right in front of a slow moving truck in plain view. Even if the truck did manage not to hit me, he would have stopped me to ask questions, at the very least."

"And you had my papers."

After I pulled her out of the road, Julie - shaky and cold with shock - had been insistent in pulling out her own papers and checking them over and over again. At the time, I thought she was out of her mind with the pain, but now it all makes horrible sense.

"I had no bloody idea," she says. "None." 

We lay there in silence for a good while longer, both of us thinking of what could have happened. Prisoners were kept in the Hotel d'Ormaie, the same building Julie was there to help destroy. There had been at least one truckload of prisoners taken from there to one of the camps before we could lay the charges. What would be done to a prisoner who was so boldly carrying British papers? They would try to get information out of her, surely. Julie would have played them _magnificently_ , I know she would, but at what cost? Would they have simply wrung her out and tossed her aside before we could set the charges? Or would we have blown the place to Kingdom Come without ever knowing she was in there, waiting for us to rescue her? Or would she have been sent away to somewhere far beyond our reach without us ever knowing what had happened?

"Well, the good news is," Julie says, and there's a trembling good humor coming back into her words, "the truck was from the Thibaut farm, and they recognized me from your description and offered me a ride before the officer had time to notice anything was amiss. You can imagine my shock when the girl in the passenger seat casually introduces herself as a member of the local resistance and would I like to come see the lady pilot they had stashed in their hayloft? I must have been gaping like a haddock."

Something in me releases, and I don't know yet if it will come out in laughter or in tears. The truck that brought Julie back to me had so very nearly taken her away. Maybe even taken her away for good.

"Of course I wasn't going to say no to that, was I? Even though it meant riding in the back with the chickens." Her shiver of disgust shakes the bed.

It's laughter that comes out in the end, not tears.

Julie starts laughing, too, low and warm with no edge to it. I pull her as close as I can without the cast becoming a problem and my arm tightens across her back so I can feel the here-ness and real-ness of her.

She's here. I'm here. _We're_ here.

I already have plenty of nightmares of that mission in Ormaie. So many things nearly went wrong. So many things did go wrong. 

Julie and I had the worst fight we'd ever had over whether or not we could trust Anna Engel. In the end, we could trust her, but the doubts still creep into my dreams even now. In my waking life, I worry _for_ her as much as I once worried _about_ her, and I hope she survives the war and can go back to studying pharmacy. It's odd, knowing that there's someone working for the Gestapo who I can genuinely count as friend.

Then, Etienne Thibaut found out that his entire family was working for the resistance. For one brief moment, I had hoped that this realization would bring with it another sort of epiphany and he would toss aside his allegiance to the Gestapo and throw his lot in with all that is right and good. 

Instead, he snuck off to go report them, only to be shot off his motorbike by his own sister. Mitraillette was a fabulous sniper, and she didn't hesitate to make the shot. She had done the right thing - not even their parents blamed her, and weeping, told her over and over again she had only done what needed to be done - but something in her was forever broken. I have nightmares of that gunshot, of Etienne's bike spinning out of control, showing us all the ruin that had been made of his head. I dream of the horror and grief on Mitraillette's face. I dream of him riding on and on, his head half blown away, to bring our doom upon us.

Sometimes, I even have nightmares about Paul, even though he did me no actual harm. Still, the might-have-beens are enough, and there's part of me that can't feel guilty for being glad that he's dead.

The thing is, Julie is always there to pull me from those nightmares, even when she's not physically present. I remember her cackling with glee after she stole yet another pack of cigarettes from Anna, thinking the other woman none the wiser even though I learned later that Anna always bought two packs at a time and made sure to leave one very loose in her pocket. I remember her staring down Mitraillette, quietly and angrily daring the other woman to cry and then holding her through the sobs. I remember the sweet crack of her breaking Paul's nose when he got handsy one time too many.

That's what I've always dreamed of, when I've dreamed of Ormaie.

I know I'll have other dreams about Ormaie, now. Dreams of a world where Julie is no longer there to pull me out of those dreams because she's gone.

Her laughter has quieted along with mine, and we're just holding each other now. It's enough.

I anchor her, and she anchors me. That's how we are. I landed the plane with its belly full of explosives. She looked to her left, and was carried back to me in a truck full of chickens.

This is real, I tell myself, as I fall asleep, feeling Julie's breath even out into sleep, pulling my breath along with it.

I sleep. I dream. I dream of climbing forever upwards into the cold, empty sky. I dream of Julie lost forever in the night and fog.

I wake again, briefly, and press a kiss to Julie's temple, my aim sure even in the dark. I linger, taking in the scent of roses that always clings to her and reminding myself of what is real. 

I don't remember falling asleep again, but when I wake again, it's to a room full of light and the even more brilliant light of Julie's smile. 

_The other was just a dream_ , I tell myself, feeling a pang of grief for a lost Julie and lonely Maddie that might have been. _This is what is real._

I lean forward and she kisses me before I can kiss her. Her kiss tells me everything I need to know.

_This is what is true._


End file.
